


The Cracks In My Composure

by geckoholic



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Getting Together, Hospitalization
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-09
Updated: 2016-06-09
Packaged: 2018-07-14 02:17:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7148315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geckoholic/pseuds/geckoholic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Maria soon discovers that it is indeed very difficult to keep from telling Trudy happy lies. She’s got this delighted smile that appears on her wrinkly face whenever there are good news to be shared, and for someone hopped up on so many painkillers that he may hardly remember his own middle name… yes, fine. She’s sympathetic.</em>
</p><p>AKA the one where Steve lands himself in the hospital and kinda maybe sort of might have told his elderly roommate that he's dating Maria.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Cracks In My Composure

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt "fake relationship". Which I refused to use a typical spy trope for, so here we are with, well. It's all Trudy's fault. Which is to say... hey guys, I made a funny! That, uh. Rarely ever happens. Whoops? XD 
> 
> Beta-read by andibeth82. Thank you!! Also thanks to totallybalanced for the idea. ♥ All remaining mistakes are mine.
> 
> Title is from "Anybodys" by Sam Weber.

Steve Rogers is not invincible. 

He's pretty close, Maria will give him that, and the terrible, very bad, no good thing about him is that he knows it. He's reckless, takes unnecessary risks. Which is why he lands himself in the hospital more often than the average SHIELD agent _anyway_. She'd try to talk to him about that, but honestly, lost cause. 

She visits him though. She always visits him. Because a) she's his superior, technically, and that's just good form, and b) she's somewhat invested. A little bit. Maria does not deny her feelings. She just doesn't show them to anyone else, is all, the object of her affections included. 

This time he fell from a moving truck, and sort of under another. When she steps into his hospital room, he's watching TV with a dopey grin, and since this isn't her first rodeo by far, Maria immediately puts him down for _high as a kite and really unnecessarily giddy about that_. He's giggling about a _toothpaste commercial_ , for chrissake. 

On second thought, it's somewhat adorable. That's another thing she'll keep to herself. 

She walks over and sets down the flowers she brought – because, again, good form – and puts a hand on his well-shaped upper arm to get his attention. As soon as he recognizes her, his face loses all color. Maria stops short. She narrows her eyes. 

“What did you do?” she inquires. 

Rogers peers around her and into the hallway, then beckons her closer with a crooked finger, close enough so he can whisper. “Don't tell Trudy.” 

“Don't tell Trudy what?” Maria wants to know, but it's too late, because just on cue the second inhabitant of the room is wheeled through the door. 

Trudy, she assumes, is an elderly women who looks to be well into her eighties, if not older, and she's got the same painkillers-to-the-max grin that Rogers has been throwing at the TV earlier. They're really not stingy with the good stuff in this place. 

“Ohh!” says Trudy, clapping her hands together. “Is that the girlfriend? She's so lovely!” 

The glare Maria picks for when she turns back around to Rogers has been known to make grown men cover in fear. A stoned Captain America is no exception; the color returns to his cheeks in a rush, and he bites his lips. _Explain_ , she mouths, and he sheepishly points at Trudy and mouths back a quick _later_. 

And heaven help her, but because not even Maria Hill would willfully spoil an old lady's fun, she plays along. 

 

*** 

 

Maria soon discovers that it is indeed very difficult to keep from telling Trudy happy lies. She’s got this delighted smile that appears on her wrinkly face whenever there are good news to be shared, and for someone hopped up on so many painkillers that he may hardly remember his own middle name… yes, fine. She’s sympathetic.

She also spends much more time than planned in the company of Rogers and his temporary roommate, listening to Trudy’s cheeky stories about a youth spent in wartime New York. It only occurs to Maria on the way home that Trudy might not be quite Rogers’s real age, but she’s close enough that her anecdotes may sound familiar.

That night, once she’s gone to bed and pulls her tablet up for a last look at her emails, Maria opens the browser app and types in a google search for contemporary witness reports from the Fifties and Forties – it’s only practical, she tells herself, having some conversation fodder for missions or… other occasions. She doesn’t hit enter, though. She’s got some dignity left.

 

***

 

When her cell phone rings with an unknown local number the next afternoon, Maria almost doesn’t answer it. She’s neck-deep in mission reports and she suspects an advertising call – her work phone is classified and highly protected, but her private phone falls victim to those just as much as everyone else. But the report that’s next on her desk is from a botched mission in Bogota, and the small satisfaction of telling a phone hotline operator to go to hell might do wonders for her mood.

It’s not a random hotline operator. It’s Rogers.

“Can you come by the hospital again? Later maybe? Or tomorrow?”

His tone is equal parts embarrassed and contrite, and Maria is intrigued despite herself. “And why would I do that?”

“See,” he begins, “Trudy had a really terrible night. Pain, bad dreams, that kinda thing.”

“So?” Maria prods.

He sighs, and then clears his throat twice before he speaks again. “I may have told her we’re engaged. To cheer her up. We haven’t shared the news with anyone else yet. It’s a secret.”

Maria closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. “Rogers,” she says. “Tell me that’s a joke.”

“I could,” he counters. “But that would be a lie, and I’d rather not tell anymore of those. I mean. To people who are not Trudy. She has ordered cake and cookies for us, and not the cheap stuff either, and she told me to call you so we can celebrate.” He sighs. “I don’t actually like lying very much.”

Maria imagines having to tell Trudy that she bought all those goodies in vain, that Maria won’t come by, or worse, that it was all a castles in the air anyway. Two clicks on her computer, and she’s got her schedule on the screen, already mentally moving things around. “I can be there a little past five.”

“Thank you,” he says, sounding like someone took so heavy a weight of his chest that even a super soldier might have crumbled under it. All because of Trudy. Because he’s too much of a good person to disappoint a sick old lady.

She considers a reply, but decides to rather hang up on him before she says anything mistakable as approval. 

It's late. 

She's tired. 

That _might_ have happened. 

 

***

 

Apparently, _ordering cake and cookies_ , in Trudy’s case, means that she buys a whole cake with a congratulatory message written on top and a wealth of pastries that could feed half the hospital. Which it sort of does: a good portion of the medical staff not currently engaged in saving lives and a few other patients get invited. The small room brims with people standing around and sitting in wheelchairs, all of them chatting, and Maria is sure that somewhere, in some alternate universe, there might be a version of her that would enjoy the hell out of all this, were it real. This Maria, however, is minutes away from phoning Asgard in the vague hopes that Thor may be able to provide her with an incantation suitable to making the ground open up and swallow her whole.

Rogers throws her apologetic glances whenever their eyes meet. He looks more with it than he did the other day, and a small, vindictive part of her is very happy about that. Good. He _should_ suffer for this mess with all his capacity for shame and regret up and running.

Then again, maybe not that much, because Trudy looks delighted beyond words. A little bit further into the celebrations, Maria finds out that she was an event planner for a time – one of the many things Trudy did for short while and then moved on from – and that she had a daughter who eloped with her husband-to-be and returned five years later, freshly divorced and sailing on a mountain of debts, just to emigrate to Canada and never be seen again within another year. And, see, family issues and members of the same running out on you is a topic Maria feels sympathetic about.

After the cake is mostly eaten and a high percentage of the pastries have disappeared into the pockets of various impromptu guests, Rogers sidles up to her. “I’m so sorry. I was high. I have no other excuse.”

“You know,” Maria says and glances at Trudy, smiling so wide it escapes description. “It took me a while to recall, but you can’t even get _drunk_. I’m not saying you were unaffected, but I somehow doubt you were _that_ high.”

He lowers his head, scratching his neck. “Maybe.”

She doesn’t get to follow up on that, because Trudy is banging a dessert fork against her hospital-issue glass and clears her throat, waving at them to come join her. Maria gives Rogers a seething glare and then smiles the sweetest smile in her repertoire and grabs him by the wrist. She has an idea where this is going, and no plans to provide him with an escape route.

Trudy hooks an arm under each of theirs and launches into a speech that would probably move a real engagement couple to tears. Maria doesn’t quite go that far, but she sniffles in spaces, and shoots Rogers a few besotted glances. Rogers, on the other hand, looks vaguely terrified. Which, well. _He should._

“May the lord’s light shine onto your path together,” Trudy finishes, squeezing both their arms rather fiercely for a woman of her age and medical condition, and then looks expectantly from one to the other.

Maria steps forward, past her, and grabs Rogers by the front of his shirt until they’re flush together. She puts a hand on his lower back – on the side only Trudy can see – and snakes the other arm around his neck. His mouth falls open in shock, but he doesn’t evade her when she seals her lips to his in messy, dirty kiss that elicits a few gasps from the people around them and enthusiastic clapping from Trudy.

When she steps back, gently cupping his jaw for good measure and finishing with a peck to his cheek, Rogers looks positively dazed. He blinks. Takes in a breath and opens his mouth, but closes it without saying a word.

Maria gives her wrist watch an exaggerated glance and moves away from him to hug Trudy, thank her for the party, and inform her that she’s very, very sorry, but she has to get back to work. 

Judging from the way he forgoes a goodbye in favor of staring after her with wide eyes, Rogers still doesn’t seem to have regained the power of speech by the time she saunters out of the room .

 

***

 

“Did no one ever teach you,” Rogers says as she passes him in the SHIELD hallway a few days later, back at work. He's braced comfortably against the wall, and she'd bet money that he's been waiting for her here. “That it's rude to embarrass a senior citizen?” 

She stops short, stack of folders held in front of her chest, and cocks her head at him. “Why, Captain, is that a note of self-deprecating humor I'm detecting?” 

“All of SHIELD is pulling jokes like that behind my back anyway.” He shrugs. “Might as well join in, right?” 

“Right,” Maria says. She leans against the opposite wall and levels him with an inquisitive stare. 

They haven't talked since the hospital. She licks her lips in thought as she revisits the memory, and he smiles. No, actually, it's closer to a _smirk_. Who knew Captain America could do that? Something must have shown on her face, but that's okay, she wasn't aiming to hide it anyway. 

Rogers pushes himself off the wall and takes a step toward her. “I didn't peg _you_ for such a passionate kisser, Agent Hill.” 

“Oh please,” she says with a snort. “I haven't been born in a SHIELD uniform. I know how to have fun.” She also takes a step in his direction, and then another – because screw it, she's done dancing around this – which means they're now standing merely a hands width apart. 

He looks around, then peers around her a little to check in every direction, and leans in, but stops just close enough to run a fingertip down her neck and between her shoulder blades, making her shiver. 

“Prove it,” he whispers into her ear, his breath warm on her skin. 

Maria isn't the type to fall for boyish challenges and dick-measuring contests, but there are some dares she'd gladly accept. Her last kiss left him speechless. She intends for this one to surpass that.


End file.
